Why is it required? It seems that most of the time it is unmounted, so I am unable to start copying files to it.

Chris

I agree this is a pain. We tend to create a detached screen session and ls into one of the subdirectories via the drives symlink. This keeps the drive mounted and available. Its a bit of a hack...but works ok as a temporary measure until we can come up with a more 'intelligent' automounter script.